Post-Panic Reflections
This post is for all you fellow souls out there who are studying for (and panicking over) the bar exam.
We’re just a week away now, a mere seven days away from marching into some big convention center or other gigantic enclosed space to sit with hundreds (in some cases, over a thousand) of other people who collectively have a huge mass of legal knowledge crammed into their heads, just waiting to commence fourteen hours of strategic memory dump. It’s a daunting thought, I know.
And lest I give off the impression to anyone — least of all myself — that I’ve got it all together, I confess that I had my breakdown last night. It seems that every bar student has one, and yesterday (and this morning) I finally melted down. It wasn’t very pretty.
I went through my evening, thoroughly ticked off at the world, hating my lack of motivation, but utterly fed up with memorizing the maze of evidence rules (which are riddled with exceptions, each of which comes with its own wonderful assortment of exceptions-to-the-exception, and more exceptions-to-the-exceptions-of-the-exception — you law folk know I’m not exaggerating on this), mastering the seemingly endless nuances and minutiae of New York versus multi-state criminal law, digesting federal civil procedure rules that are so dry they make the Sahara seem like one gigantic wadi, and… doing everything else that is required to keep twenty-one separate legal subjects straight in my head. I haven’t been getting enough sleep, I’ve been popping more aspirin than the entire year put together, and I suppose the tension has just been slowly mounting all along. To make matters worse, my worries about the bar exploded and contaminated the rest of my mind, and I started to worry about life in general.
The worst thing about it was that talking to my parents only made things worse, and all my best girlfriends were not immediately available. What I needed/wanted was for someone to come over, hand me tissues, and give me a gigantic hug. But it just so happened that all my best girls are elsewhere — and some are very FAR elsewhere. Let’s see… one is in Chicago, one is in San Francisco, two are usually in New York but one was in Mexico and one was in South Africa, and another sister is permanently in Hong Kong. There was no way I was going to get the hug that I wanted.
In the end, I did end up talking to C on the phone (she’s the one in SF), and that was very helpful. And in the middle of that conversation, we zeroed in on the things that were bothering me, and in the middle of that conversation, I began to realize that I was being a bit ridiculous in being so miserable and cranky and annoyed. When we stopped focusing so much on the bar (she’s studying for the Cal bar), and instead started discussing the real passions that we share in life — the working for justice, the sharing the love of Christ, the building of God’s Kingdom on Earth, the strengthening of human relationships — the bar exam suddenly seemed trite in comparison.
The bar seemed trite on two levels. First, in the scheme of life, it is a relatively small thing — a two (or three) day exam that determines whether we get our law licenses or not. If we fail, we take the exam again. That stinks, and especially now in week nine or ten, we desperately despise the studying process. But really — it will pass.
Second, when we began to reflect on all those other things in life, the need for God’s intervention seemed so much more obvious. I mean, where am I going to get the wisdom to do justice on earth? Where is this sinful self going to get the capacity to love other people with the love of Christ? How do we expect to have the slightest idea of where to begin building the Kingdom of God, if not from God Himself and through His strong guidance? And human relationships, the fabric with which our lives are constructed, need Christ at the center in order to be strengthened and bonded. In all these things — the REAL issues in life, we need God desperately or else we can do nothing.
And the bar? Well… I started to realize that maybe that’s why I felt like the bar was such a burden — because I was starting to depend on just ME to pass the darn thing. And see, that makes no sense. Because if God is big enough and great enough and concerned enough to involve Himself in our lives for the big things (to wit, all the things I listed above, and more) — then… wouldn’t He also provide for little things, like … the bar exam? This isn’t to say that I don’t need to study and do my share of diligent work (which I’ve been doing! Eight to fourteen hours a day — I promise) … but it does mean that after I do that, it’s not about me anymore. And there’s relief in that.
* * *
To be honest, I didn’t finally get this clearer head until later today. Despite my good conversation with C, which brought up some good food for thought and fodder for the soul, I still went to bed feeling pretty lousy. To make matters worse, I got less than six hours of sleep before pulling myself up and out of bed to attend the six-hour simulated PMBR exam in the morning. I was still cranky and miserable when I got to the exam, but what do you know — somewhere in the middle of doing two hundred Evidence, Contracts, Torts, Criminal Law & Procedure, Constitutional Law, and Property questions, things slipped back into focus. I got my sanity back. And a greater measure of peace made its way back into my heart.
I don’t suspect that I’ll have another breakdown before the bar exam, or during it. Once was enough for me, and I’m glad it’s over. In hindsight, I can also say that I’m glad that it happened. Because maybe that’s what it took for me to realize in a much more obvious way that this isn’t just my game. This life isn’t wholly mine, and when God called me to live it for Him — He also accompanied that call with a promise to provide for me in it. He doesn’t just command; He also directs, protects, marches alongside, and — when necessary — even carries.